


Man on the Run

by kijilinn



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Aging, Alternate Universe - Future, F/M, Fuck you AMC, Future Fic, Gen, Non-Canonical Character Death, Non-Canonical Character Survival, Save Carl Grimes, Save Simon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 03:24:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14535588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kijilinn/pseuds/kijilinn
Summary: I can't stand to see him on the wall. This is the future as I wish it could be.





	1. Chapter 1

Simon leaned out, then turned back to me and kissed me. “It’s going down and it’s going down hard. Get out. I’ll find you.”

I shook my head and tried to fight my way past the panic. “Come with me. Please, Simon. He’ll kill you.”

“I know.” His smile was crooked and his eyes serious, but he kissed me again. He kissed me like he was never going to see me again. I clung to him. “I’ll find you,” he whispered. “I promise. I’m getting out of this and I will find you again.” Gunfire drew his attention and I tried to hug him tighter. “Go.”

“Simon--”

He turned sharply to me and I stuttered to a stop at the look on his face. “I need to know you’re safe and that he can’t do anything to do you because of me. Please.” His eyes closed and he leaned in to hold my face in his hand. “I promise you, I’ll get out.”

“How?”

“Roguish charm?”

I gave him the weak laugh he was looking for and kissed him through my tears. “I’m holding you to that promise. You know how much I hate trite promises, Simon.”

“I know.” He nodded and kissed me slowly. “I don’t make them lightly with you. Never have, never will. I’m getting out.” The gunfire was closer now and he winced. “Please, go. Please get somewhere safe.”

“I will.” I reached quickly to touch his cheeks, drew him down and kissed him one more time. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

 

I ran. I sprinted for the gates with nothing, just my clothes and a long knife strapped to my leg. I tried not to think about Simon, about the danger he was in or the way Negan had looked at him the last time I had seen him. The way Negan had looked at me when he had last seen me. There had been pity in his eyes, a “sorry for your loss” look that acknowledged that there’d be a reason for me to hate him soon. I sprinted and the gate was open just that little bit, enough for me to squeeze through and keep going. I didn’t look back to see who had let me go.

I dodged the dead. I didn’t even bother putting them down, just evaded and kept going. I needed to put as much space between myself and the Sanctuary as I could. I knew where Simon would look for me.

I wasn’t conditioned for long-distance running anymore. I could manage a 5k without stopping to walk, but anything farther than that was just beyond what I could maintain. I slowed to catch my breath, still keeping my attention high for both the living and the dead. I swallowed against my own fear, then paused at the base of a tree with low branches. I climbed as high as I thought would bear my weight and then just hugged the branch and stayed there. 

The lack of exertion brought the reality back to me: Negan was going to kill Simon. If Simon couldn’t find a way out of it or around the situation, he was going to die. I would be out here on my own unless I wanted to go back and grovel for mercy. Even if I did go back, Simon would still be dead. I focused on slow breaths to keep from crying. This was bad. This was end of the world bad and I’d already lived through the end of the world.

I must have fallen asleep because when I opened my eyes again, it was dark and I could feel how stiff my legs were. Big mistake, running like that without stretching. I would pay for it later, assuming I lived until later. I hung there, letting my limbs dangle as I watched the forest floor. A few walkers wandered aimlessly below me. I could hear an owl in the trees. A squirrel scolded into the distance. 

I closed my eyes and let out my breath before I started to cry.

 

By morning, I had managed to find a way to stretch my legs without falling out of the tree. When there were no walkers nearby, I slipped down and kept going. I hadn’t heard any hunters in the night other than the animal kind. I had another eight miles before I reached the safe house, the place Simon would look. 

If Simon was still alive.

I tried not to think like that. I tried to focus on the promise he’d made me. He had promised he would find a way out. He had promised me he would find me again. I had to hold onto that. I had to.

I stopped when I found a clear stream. I drank a little water, not enough to make myself sick if a walker was stuck upstream somewhere. Just enough to wet my mouth and throat. I was hungry but my options were limited. I found some berries I knew were safe and lucked out to find a sassafras tree. I stripped the bark and chewed on it while I walked. There wasn’t protein, but it would keep me going. 

The gravel road to the hunting camp finally wound out in front of me just as the sun was dipping behind the trees. I stopped long enough to close my eyes in relief, then continued. Simon had found the place a few months ago and taken me out for a weekend of the loudest sex we could manage and quiet evenings by the fireplace. He had stocked it then and during our first stay, we found the bunker underneath. Someone had planned for the end of the world: fresh water, stocks of canned and non-perishable foods, propane, emergency radio, batteries. And guns. He had locked it tight when we left and I just had to pray nobody had found it since we had last been here.

A walker in hunter orange and camo was swaying beside the front door. I found myself smiling: he fit the motif. I circled wide around him and found a clear path to the back of the cabin. There were two entrances, but we had blocked off the back one entirely. Simon had hidden a rope ladder and I used that to scale the back of the cabin to the gable window. It was unlocked but shuttered securely and I had to fiddle with it until it opened and I could crawl inside. The attic space was dusty and warm. I pulled the ladder up after me, leaving the pull cord where Simon could find it. 

Because he would find it.

I lit an oil lamp and turned it low, worked my way through the main room to the fireplace and started building a fire. It wouldn’t be necessary tonight since temperatures had been well above freezing and the cabin was well-insulated, but the activity gave me something to do. Once there was a stable fire lit, I banked it carefully and crept to the black-out curtains to peer outside. The walker was still there, his vacant face directed at the cabin’s door as if he had called someone to come out and play. I went down into the bunker, collected a can of black beans, a cup of rice and enough water to prep the rice. With water boiling and rice steaming, I felt better. A little better. At least I wouldn’t starve.

I curled up in front of the fire with a blanket around my shoulders. I ate my rice and beans. I turned the lamp up a little and pulled one of the novels from the bookshelf and tried to force myself to focus on a story other than my own. Outside, I heard the walker groan a few times and the shuffling of his feet in the dry leaves but he didn’t seem interested in leaving. 

Neither was I.

 

Four days passed that way. I slept, ate, checked supplies. I made sure I had a good vantage point from the second floor to snipe if I needed to. I started talking to the walker outside on the third day. I named him Grandpa Wilson, thinking of Tom Hanks and a particularly fond memory of summer camp. 

On the fourth night just as I was thinking about curling up on the sofa to get some sleep--I had left the big queen bed untouched since my arrival--I heard Grandpa stirring. He made a strange half-yodel which ended with an oddly duck-like  _ wonk _ at the end. I wondered if he had enough lung capacity still to sound a duck call. I took my rifle and headed up to the second floor window overlooking the front of the cabin. With the lamp dimmed and at my back, I let my eyes adjust to the outside moonlight and watched the figures creeping into the yard. Despair pulled at me: none of them were tall enough for Simon, but one was small enough to be Arat. If Negan had fanned out this far to look for stragglers…

I took careful aim at the tallest of the bunch, a bulky figure with a trucker’s cap pulled low over his face. I had been a marksman in riflery since I was ten years old. It wasn’t until after the dead rose that I started using it for something other than tournaments and party tricks. I squeezed the trigger, felt the rifle rock my shoulder, watched the man fall. The hat didn’t seem like Negan, but I found myself wistfully wishing it was him. I had always liked Negan but if he was here instead of Simon, I wasn’t going to pull my punches. Grandpa Wilson surged forward at the falling body and the other two figures scrambled away, shouting in surprise. One of them went for my undead companion and the other lifted a pistol toward my window. I shot the one going for Grandpa Wilson in the arm, watched him drop his knife and clutch his wound to his chest while he screamed. The pistol-waver shot at me but literally could not hit the broad side of a log cabin, since I didn’t even hear the bullet impact.

While I was taking aim at the pistol-waver, something on the edge of my vision drew my attention. I looked to the edge of the yard and stared as something large and dark moved swiftly out to snap the neck of the man I had injured. The pistol-waver turned to shoot so I calmly put a bullet in her skull. 

I knew that swift snap. 

I knew that grace.

Simon looked up at me from the yard, his face darkened with mud to avoid reflecting the moonlight. He stopped to look back at Grandpa Wilson who was focused on devouring the first man I shot, then he looked back up at me and I saw his teeth flash in a grin. Simon’s grin.

I scrambled for the gable window and threw the ladder to him. I was blind with tears by the time he reached me, his arms pulling me close to his chest and his voice rumbling comfort. I sobbed helplessly in his arms and Simon rocked me slowly, his face pressed to my hair. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “I’m here. I found you. I told I would.”

“I knew you would,” I whispered back. “You promised.”

Simon’s soft laugh warmed me and I curled my fingers into his shirt, pulling to keep him close. “Are there beans?” he murmured in my ear. “I’m starving.”

“Rice and beans,” I giggled back. “It’s by the fire. It’s probably cold.”

“I don’t care.” Simon shifted to turn toward the attic ladder which dropped down into the bedroom and I reached to cling to his shirt again. He paused and smiled at me, one hand running along my jaw. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “I’m really here.” I dragged him to me and kissed him, desperate and fierce and full of relief. When I let him up for air again, Simon grinned. “Going to sleep in the bed tonight?”

I grinned back and leaned into his chest. “Only if you’re there.”

“Nowhere I’d rather be,” he murmured and kissed me again.


	2. Chapter 2

I never asked him how he escaped. In the end, it didn’t matter. He had and that’s what I cared about. He told me Negan wouldn’t follow him, that the Big Man had his own problems to attend to and Simon wasn’t one of them anymore. I never pushed him beyond that and he seemed grateful for that. 

We left Grandpa Wilson outside. He was good camouflage. With a few moves we had picked up at the Sanctuary, I distracted him while Simon tethered him. We gave him enough line to wander without moving around the back of the cabin. We built a fence there before we started to work on the garden. Canned beans and dried rice will only get you so far. 

Simon sorted the weapons in the bunker, came up mostly with hunting rifles and ammunition. There was a handgun, a .38 and he started carrying that when he scavenged. Otherwise, he went unarmed except for a knife. 

We built a deer blind about two miles from the cabin and started a bait pile of half-rotten apples and peaches, vegetables the worms and beetles got into before we could harvest, canned stuff I couldn’t stand. I took a deer about once a week, trying to aim for older bucks and does without fawns. I picked my brain for everything I had ever read in a Foxfire book about skinning, preserving and using all parts of a deer. I came home from one hunting trip to find Simon attempting to play chopsticks on the ribcage of a previous kill with a pair of femurs. He actually blushed when I caught him.

When we weren’t hunting deer or tending the garden, we went on forays toward more civilized locations. We looked for supplies, ammunition, kerosene for the stove, salt and sugar for preserving and canning, seeds for the garden. We stayed out of view, did our best to cover our tracks. Negan may not be looking for us, but our supplies would still be useful to other survivors.

We made love. We made love with the reverence of two people who should be dead and miraculously found themselves alive and together. We fucked, too, rutting like the desperate creatures we were but mostly we made love. We slept wrapped up in each other, neither able to relax without the other’s skin under our hands. We never left anything to chance, always whispering our love for each other before falling asleep, before leaving the cabin and again when we came back. 

It wasn’t idyllic. We fought like any other couple with strong views and wills. My lapsed brain chemistry drove me to depression, anxiety and insecurity, which wore on Simon sometimes. He understood but it’s hard when someone you love is irrational. His temper flared when he was frustrated, sometimes exploding into thrown objects, aggressive shouting matches or long sessions of chopping firewood while muttering darkly. I understood but it’s hard when someone you love is irrational.

The only neighbors we encouraged were the dead. The living who approached the cabin didn’t survive to remember it, taken down calmly by a sniper bullet from an upper window or a knife thrust from the shadows. When Grandpa Wilson’s jaw fell off and he retired to just swaying and wheezing occasionally, Simon tethered a fresher walker farther from the house. 

We survived. Whatever attempts at civilization grew up around us, it steered clear of the cabin in the woods with its rotation of displayed walkers, mature fruit trees and vegetable garden like something out of a fairy tale. We survived walker herds, hard winters, the rise of personal property and expectations of trade for goods. We traded venison and carved bone knives for bread and eggs. When laws started to spring up and question our right to the property, they backed off again at calmly placed sniper bullets and fresh walkers. 

Society returned. It took years and we were removed from it and when it came, it looked at us like relics from a nightmare and turned away. It left us alone. It left us alone to our carefully culled deer herds and unlicensed hunting, our deadfall wood pile and walker-marked territory. It left us alone.

 

It was early spring when I lifted my head to the sound of our fence waking up. I had been cleaning the rifles and stood up, surprised when I discovered the stiffness of my neck. Too long in one position again. I went to the window and pulled back the blackout curtain. Simon stood in the front of the house beside the house walker, Samantha. Her jaw had fallen off almost a year ago and she was as docile as Grandpa Wilson had been. 

At the edge of our fence, out of reach of the more spritely walkers, stood a man I thought I should know. Simon held his pistol out, aimed at the newcomer and braced for kick. “Move on,” I heard him say clearly. “There’s nothing for you here.”

The other man raised his hands and called back, “Actually, I’m looking for you, Simon.” 

Ice gripped my spine and I scrambled for the half-assembled rifle on the table. No one would take him from me. Not after all this time. Hadn’t we earned some peace? I finished reassembling the rifle and threw up the window beside Simon’s head, aiming at the young man. “Move on,” I snapped at him, trying to keep the fear out of my voice and my hands from trembling. “There’s nothing for you here.”

The man blinked in surprise and I realized one of his eyes was artificial though it tracked surprisingly well with his natural eye. “I thought you were dead,” he said to me. “Everyone knew Simon had survived, but… nobody knew you made it, too.”

“Everyone…” Simon’s voice trailed off and he looked back at me, confused. “Coffee?” he whispered, one eyebrow raised. There was curiosity in his voice and I chewed my lip, refusing to take my sights off the young man at our fence. 

“He could be anyone,” I whispered back. “Don’t like it.”

“No wonder you’ve stayed out here so long.” 

I knew that voice and shook my head hard, trying to clear the mustiness from my brain. When I looked at him again, I knew who he was. “Carl.” I dropped my aim to the ground to stare at him. “Carl Grimes.”

Carl smiled at me, a half-smile that reminded me of his father. His hair was short and he looked like he was in his mid-twenties. I suppose he would be. I glanced at Simon, baffled. “It’s been a weird world,” Carl offered in a quiet voice. “Can we at least talk about it? Survivor to survivor?”

Simon and I exchanged a long look and he shrugged. “Your call.”

I glared at Carl, then sighed and withdrew back into the house. “Come in. I’ll make coffee.”

I heard the door open and both men come inside. I put water on the stove and turned back to study Carl where he stood in the middle of our living room. “You have coffee?” he asked me in surprise.

Simon chuckled. “There were several pounds freeze dried down there when we got here. We’ve been trading for it since we ran out. If there’s one thing I never want to see, it’s her without coffee in the morning.” He lifted his chin at me and I stuck out my tongue in answer. 

“I guess a lot has changed.” When Carl moved toward one of the chairs, then paused I nodded, giving him permission to sit. He settled there with a sigh. “This is a nice place. I’d heard about you out here but never pictured this.”

“We’ve been lucky,” Simon replied. He took down an extra coffee mug and set it near my hand before he reached to curl his fingers around mine. I looked up and realized he was just as nervous about this as I was. This was more invasion of society than we had had since we came here. He gave my hand a little tug and I let him pull me close, wrap his arms around me and rest his chin on top of my head. “Very, very lucky.” I found myself smiling and blushing into his shirt.

Once I had handed Carl a mug of coffee and we were settled on the couch, Simon immediately pulled me against his chest and refused to let me sit like an adult. He hadn’t had anyone to jealously posture in front of in probably a decade, so I let him. Carl seemed amused. “There’s a reason I’m here,” Carl said after sipping his coffee. “I wish it was just a social call. You’ve probably noticed the roads have been getting more active.” When we nodded, he continued, “A lot is recovering. We’ve rebuilt so much that we’re looking at needing to expand.”

“You’re coming for our land.” I sighed and snuggled deeper in Simon’s arms. 

Carl gave me an apologetic smile. “Not me personally but the folks I’m representing, yeah. They’ve got plans for this stretch of forest, clean out all the walkers and make a hiking preserve. It’ll be beautiful when it’s done, but they can’t have someone living in it.”

“It’s beautiful now,” I snapped irritably and Carl grinned. 

“Well, yeah. But you know what I mean. They want to make it manicured, safe for families to take their kids on hiking trails, that kind of thing.”

“What’s the angle?” Simon asked in a soft voice. “Why’d they send you, specifically? You can’t think we’ll believe it’s chance, Carl.”

“No.” Carl shifted and sighed. “Enid, Judy and I have been kind of the unofficial contact point between developed society and survivors. We’re the adjustment committee, I guess. At least around here, we are. We’re the ones they sent to talk Martin and his friends out of their stronghold two years ago. We’re the ones who found Negan.”

“He’s still alive?” Simon’s voice was strained and I closed my eyes and clung to his arm. 

Carl smiled quietly. “Marginally. He had a heart attack, maybe three weeks ago. Hospital’s not sure there’s much they can do at this point. They’re surprised he’s still kicking at all.” He inclined his head towards us, acknowledging the connection. I took a second to try to count in my head and realized that I had no idea how old I was anymore. I knew Simon’s beard was more grey than brown now, but that had been true for a long time. I supposed I was probably in my sixties now. It was an odd feeling to realize I wasn’t sure. “Thing is, they’ve asked us to find a way to convince you to move. They really need this part of the land and they’re willing to do a lot to get it.”

“How much?” Simon murmured. I squirmed against his chest. The idea of leaving this place was not high on my list of things I felt like doing. He put one hand across my forehead and stroked my hair back from my face and I subsided. 

“What do you want?” Carl asked with a shrug.

I looked at Simon upside-down and he smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

They moved us. 

They dug up the foundations, the bunker, all of it. They disassembled our home, loaded it onto trucks. They moved us to West Virginia, to an abandoned area in the Appalachians. They set us up on almost a thousand acres of woodlands, promised us privacy and regular supply drops. Carl left us with a satellite phone and urged us to call if we needed anything.

There weren’t many walkers anymore. Most of the original wave had rotted into nothing by now. We decided on electric fences instead. The deer herds did well with some culling around the edges and Carl’s people made sure we had the supplies to restart our garden and the orchards. 

We stood in front of our home watching the sun set behind the slope of the mountain. Simon’s arms looped around my waist and he had his chin resting on my shoulder. I stood on a stump which put me only a few inches shorter and I leaned back against him. “I love you,” he whispered and kissed the spot just behind my ear that always made me shiver.

“I love you, too,” I whispered back. 

“I’ve been thinking,” he murmured and I gasped overdramatically. Simon squeezed me and jostled me with a low laugh. “Shut up, it happens. I was just thinking, what if we went back? Not for good obviously, but just to… see.”

“See what?” I asked softly. “Go where?”

“Alexandria.” His lips slowly brushed my neck and I closed my eyes. “The Hilltop. The Sanctuary.” When I didn’t answer, Simon paused and gently kissed my neck. “We don’t have to, obviously. I was just thinking.”

I thought about it as the sun dipped lower and plunged us into the twilight that comes early in the shadow of the mountains. “I’m hungry,” I finally whispered and turned in Simon’s arms. “Want to order a pizza?” His smile was brilliant and I leaned my forehead to his, trying not to worry.

 

We called Carl. He was surprised to hear our request but agreed that it wouldn’t be hard to accomplish. A few weeks later, we met him on the edge of our property at the little station that doubled as our residential mailing address. The car that rolled to a stop at the end of the driveway made me smile. “Electric?” I asked when Carl got out. 

“All the gas is too expensive now,” he grinned back as he leaned on the roof, “and most of the oil families died out. Electric and solar power is king.” He jerked his head welcomingly. “Get in.”

Simon got into the back seat behind the passenger seat and Carl obligingly pulled the seat all the way forward to give him leg room. I snuggled up next to him. Carl pulled out and turned on the radio, letting us listen to news, music from the last ten years, even a religious station he tried to skip over but we made him turn it back just so we could hear it. “They aren’t pushing the eternal life thing quite so hard now,” I chuckled. 

“A lot more eternal rest,” Carl agreed. “Were you religious before?”

“Agnostic,” I smiled. “Raised Baptist.”

“Ouch. Simon?”

“Catholic.” He grinned into my hair. “Marginally, anyway. Easter and Christmas.”

“Did you hear what happened to the pope?”

Simon laughed and shook his head. “Carl, how would I have heard? It’s not like I’m getting the newspaper.” 

“Point taken.” Carl grinned at us in the rearview mirror and shrugged. “You feel like regular people to me. I forget sometimes.”

“Thank you,” I said softly. 

“The pope,” Simon prodded and I could almost hear the grin on his face. 

“Bitten during a funeral early in the European outbreak. He declared the reanimated dead outcasts from heaven before he died and started chewing on his bodyguards. The next one they found was more forgiving.”

“I suppose the new one declared Protestants Christians after that, didn’t he?” I chuckled.

Carl blinked, his eyes coming up to the mirror and back to the road. “I don’t know. Is that a thing?”

“It cycles in and out with different popes,” I said with a shrug. “Or it did, anyway.”

“Did they ever figure out what caused it?” Simon asked. He had one hand slowly working its way under the edge of my shirt, seeking skin and I put my hand on the back of his wrist, trying not to giggle. He wiggled his fingers in answer and stopped. “Is there a cure?”

“No,” Carl replied, “and no. Booming business in prosthetics, though.”

A few hours later, he took an off-ramp that spiralled toward the city. Simon and I watched as Alexandria sprawled out across the landscape, easily recovered to its pre-walker size and population. I shook my head slowly and whispered, “Humans really are like roaches, aren’t we?”

“That’s my girl,” Simon chuckled. “Ever the optimist.”

“I got you a suite at one of the hotels downtown,” Carl told us. “It’s about half a mile from the original ASZ. I thought you might like to take one of the walking tours.” I snorted and he grinned at me, “Yeah, they’re poorly named.”

“So are you a celebrity now?” I asked. Carl shrugged and pulled the car into the parking garage for the hotel. “I mean, if they’re memorializing the Alexandria Safe Zone, they’re putting your dad pretty high in the ranks of recovery.”

Carl stretched as we all climbed out of the car. “I think it’s more like how every little town wants to claim itself ‘historic’ because something happened there one time. Just, y’know, bigger.” 

 

We walked down to the safe zone, looked at the preserved gates and walls, the rows of ticky-tacky houses in a style from another time. People lived in them now. Carl told us the property value down here was astronomical and I believed him. We stopped in front of the house where Carl and his father and sister had lived, the house where Negan served spaghetti and bounced baby Judith on his lap on the porch. I looked at Carl as he stared at the house, then his gaze slid sideways to meet mine and he smiled, a thin, forced expression. “They made it a fucking museum. A shrine to everything my dad stood for. Or so they say.”

“They lionized him,” I murmured and Carl nodded. 

“Lucky for them he’s dead.” 

Carl glanced back at Simon and smiled more genuinely. “Lucky for me, too. Let me get on with my life.”

“What a difference a decade or two makes,” Simon murmured.

“And an industrial-sized set of rose colored glasses.” 

We walked back to the hotel and stopped at a restaurant serving pizza and beer. I waxed poetic about the pizza while Simon did the same over the beer. It really had been a long time. “Cheese, Carl,” I said, shaking a slice at him. “Do you know how long it’s been since I had cheese!?” He spent most of the meal trying not to laugh openly at us. 

“Do you want to go to the Sanctuary tomorrow?” Carl asked us as we retired to the suite of rooms for the night. “I can call to arrange a private tour. Or there’s the Hilltop.” Simon and l exchanged long looks, measuring each other in silence until Carl was shifting nervously in the hall. “Or…”

I turned to look at him, puzzled by the tentative tone. “Or?”

Carl slowly let his shoulders come up and drop back down. “There was someone who asked to see you. Has been asking, actually.” When neither of us spoke, he said softly, “Negan’s asked about you. He’d like to see you, if you’re okay with it.”

“I thought,” I started, “with the heart attack…”

“He’s in hospice,” Carl explained quietly. “They’ve got him stable, comfortable.”

“Stable,” Simon chuckled sourly and I bounced my shoulder off of his chest, quelling him. 

“We’ll talk it over,” I said. “It’s a lot to think about. We’ll talk again over breakfast?” Carl nodded and turned away to leave us to our thoughts. Once the door was closed and bolted, I sighed and started to strip out of my clothes, leaving them in a trail toward the bathroom. “I’m getting a shower.”

“There room for two?”

“Two normal-sized humans. I don’t think they have sasquatch-rated showers. They cost extra.”

Simon snorted and caught me around the waist, pulling me back against his chest as he kissed my bare shoulder. “I guess I’ll just have to duck. Story of my life.” I giggled and he hugged me, swaying a little without letting me go. “I don’t know if I can see him,” he finally whispered. 

“Then we won’t,” I whispered back and let my head rest against his chest. “He just asked, Simon. It sounds like he’s not in any shape to demand anything anymore.” Simon let one hand roam across my stomach, then up and over one of my breasts, thumb brushing the nipple. His hands were at home on my body and I smiled at the thought. 

“Heart attack.” Simon’s voice sounded a little hollow and he laughed. “Seriously. Negan.”

“I suppose it’s the number two cause of death now,” I said and tugged on his hand. “C’mon, fuzzy. I still want that shower.”


	4. Chapter 4

The bed rocked and I half-opened my eyes as Simon got up and paced to the bathroom. I listened to him bumping around and swearing under his breath, then the cacophonous roar of the bathroom fan as he found the light switch. I closed my eyes again and pretended to be asleep when he returned and crawled back in beside me. “You’re a shitty liar,” he informed me in a low voice and I smiled when his hand slid across my back. “You can’t sleep either.”

“It’s so loud,” I mumbled into the pillow. “I thought the mockingbird was bad.”

Simon snuggled closer and spooned against my back, curled close with his arms wrapped around my middle. He pushed his face into my hair and sighed. “Every time I get close, someone coughs or sneezes or a car honks somewhere. I forgot out loud civilization is.” 

“The running water is nice, though,” I said. 

“I’d enjoy the lights if they didn’t buzz so loudly.”

I laughed softly and rolled over to kiss him. “That’s not the electricity. It’s the shitty hotel fixtures.” I ran my fingers down the side of his face and smiled at him. “So that’s a no to running power out to the cabin so we can have a waffle iron?”

“Vile temptress,” Simon growled and rolled me onto my back. “Preying on the weak and sleep deprived with promises of waffles.” We watched each other in the dim light that still leaked in through the blackout curtain, then Simon leaned in and kissed me slowly. “I love you,” he whispered. “I miss the woods, but I love you.”

I grinned and hooked one leg around his hip. “I know. I agree with both of those.”

“You agree that I love you?”

“That’s pretty obvious by now. We’ve only been living in a fucking log cabin together for the last fifteen-odd years.”

“Maybe I’m just sticking around for the sex and the venison.”

I snorted. “The sex hasn’t been a draw for a long time, dude. You don’t have to lie.”

Simon grinned and kissed me again, taking his time. “You’re still sexy as hell,” he whispered.

“Thank you,” I whispered back. “It’s nice to hear.” Outside the window, a siren started up and I groaned, dropping back in frustration. “Does it ever stop!?”

Simon had a funny look on his face and got back out of the bed to go to the window. “I’ve never heard a siren like that before. It’s not police. Not fire. Not American, anyway.”

I came to stand next to him and slipped one arm around his hips. He put one arm around me in an automatic hug and I leaned close as we stared out the window. There were people rushing for buildings or fire escapes. Within a few minutes of the siren, the streets were completely empty.

Except for the dead.

“Fuck,” I breathed quietly as we watched the two dozen walkers staggering down the street. They all looked fresh, the blood on their clothes still bright and some of the wounds still oozing. Almost all of them were wearing hospital uniforms or ID badges. “Fresh outbreak?”

“Looks like,” Simon agreed. “Why are they even moving, though? What’s keeping them on the road?” In answer, we heard the rumble of a large vehicle. A massive truck that reminded me of old school Hummers only with smoother lines and solar panels along the roof turned onto the main road from a side road. When it was free of the buildings, it extended long arms with flapping, squirming shapes dangling from them. To the human eye, they were clearly flags and weighted dummies but they obviously convinced the staggering mob; it lurched after the truck and continued down the road without losing so much as a single straggler. Several minutes later, a ground team of people on foot walked through, checking for downed walkers.

“Just another part of life,” I murmured quietly and shivered. Simon hugged me tighter and kissed the top of my head.

 

Carl met us for breakfast. The specter of the previous night had put me off the idea of waffles, but the coffee called to me and Simon pushed a piece of bacon or a piece of toast onto my plate whenever I wasn’t looking. “Are roundups like that common?” Simon asked after he had made sure I had eaten at least half of what he put on my plate.

“Not really,” Carl said and I could tell the subject was an uncomfortable one. “Once, maybe twice a month someone will get bitten in the morgue or by an accident victim or something. They’re usually contained pretty quickly but this one looks like it got out of hand.”

“I guess coroners get hazard pay now,” I muttered into my toast. “What about first responders? ER techs, that kind of thing?”

“They tend to be more alert,” Carl said with a shrug. “The coroners usually figure someone’s quieted the corpse before sending it down and usually they have, but mistakes happen.” We studied our breakfasts in silence for a while and I reached to steal a hashbrown from Simon’s plate. “Thought about where you want to go today?”

“Thought about it,” Simon murmured with a half-smile. “Decided? Not quite. I’m kind of curious about what happened to the rest of the world.”

Carl smiled. “Well, Canada and most of the colder parts of the world did pretty well. The cold kept the dead from decaying quite so quickly as down here, but it made them stiffer, too. We had a lot of help setting up from Ontario and Quebec.” I tried not to react when he said it with a hard K sound at the beginning the way a native would rather than the Anglicized KW sound. Carl saw my amusement anyway and added, “And yes, they’ve been teaching us out to speak properly. French is the third most common language spoken here now and almost tied with Spanish.”

“I’ll bet England is thrilled about that,” snickered Simon. “They’re still saying ‘left-tenant’ and ‘val-ett.’” 

“What’s left of them,” Carl said grimly. “Most of Great Britain took the infections hard. Too many people crammed too closely together and not enough weapons to go around. One of the few times America did better by having so many guns. Japan’s wiped out entirely and we’re still getting occasional dead ones washing up in the Gulf Stream. Russia did well, for what it’s worth. So did Australia, though apparently they’ve had some cross-species infections over there. There’s nothing quite as terrifying as an undead kangaroo, let me tell you.” Carl shuddered.

Simon’s hand slipped over my knee and I felt him squeeze, just enough to catch my attention. I glanced at him but he wasn’t looking at me, his jaw tight. He was done hedging. “I think I’d like to see Negan today, if that’s okay. Rip the bandaid off quickly and all. Maybe the Sanctuary afterwards, if there’s time.”

“You’re sure?” I murmured and his fingers squeezed again.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Carl watched us for a moment, then smiled and nodded. “I’ll make some calls.”

 

The little house Carl drove us to seemed oddly out of place to me. Like our cabin, it was set well away from any other buildings although not quite to our extreme. It was a farm house, two stories with a steeply pitched slate roof and a massive oak tree outside. In the grass outside dozed a big dog that barely lifted its head when we drove up. 

A woman younger than Carl stood on the porch, her eyes wary. Her hair was dark blonde and in a braid over her shoulder. She reminded me of someone but I couldn’t place it. “How is he?” Carl asked quietly as he approached the porch.

“Quiet,” she replied with a shrug, “for a change.”

“Does he know?”

She nodded. “He remembers, too.”

Carl smiled and looked back at us. “I’d like to introduce my sister, Judith.”

“Charmed,” she said with an ironic lilt in her voice as she reached to shake our hands. “You’re the one who skipped town after Negan kicked his ass.”

Simon went very still beside me and I licked my lips without looking at him. After a strained moment of silence, Carl cleared his throat and said, “My sister has a very particular way of looking at the world.”

“This was a bad idea.” Simon’s fingers closed on my wrist and I felt him pulling on me, trying to back away. “This was a very bad idea.”

I tried to calm him but as soon as my mouth opened, a voice called from inside the house, “Jude?” We all froze and I watched the mixed emotions on Simon’s face as he tried to sort out a reaction to hearing Negan’s voice after so long. “Someone there?”

“Carl brought some people,” Judith called back and pushed her way back inside the house. I could hear her talking and Negan answering in his familiar rumble. He sounded older, tired but it was still the same Negan who had barked orders to the Saviors. The same Negan who had given and taken away so many lives, so many chances. 

Simon was shaking his head, his eyes shut tightly. “I don’t think I can do this.”

I sighed and reached to cup his face in my palms. He jerked a little, then opened his eyes to look at me. “You can,” I whispered. “He can’t hurt you, Simon. He can’t hurt us.” He ran one hand along the back of my wrist and turned to kiss my hand, squeezing his eyes shut again. “You got out like you promised me you would,” I reminded him softly. “You got out and found me.”

“I did.” Simon pulled me into a desperate hug and buried his face in my shoulder. He took a few long, careful breaths and kissed me. He kissed me like he had the night he climbed to safety through the gable window. I kissed him back just as fiercely.

“Afternoon, Carl.” 

“Same to you.” Carl’s voice carried a small smile, almost fond and I looked up from Simon to see Negan standing on the porch of his little house. 

The man seemed smaller than I remembered. He leaned heavily on a cane, watched us through heavy-framed glasses. His hair was entirely grey and so was his beard. His eyes wandered over us for a few seconds and then he said quietly, “Angel. It’s good to see you.”

I tried not to shiver. Negan was the only one who had ever called me that and I felt Simon’s hand on my shoulder, still pulling me closer to him. “Negan,” I replied. My voice shook and I struggled with my shame.

Negan looked past me to Simon and Simon’s hand on my shoulder tightened. “Simon.”

“Negan.”

“You found her.”

“I did.”

Negan nodded once and turned back toward his door. “Good. Come inside and I’ll get the fucking lemonade.”

Carl smiled at us and shrugged, waved a hand at the porch and waited. Judith stood in the doorway, watching with her cynical eyes. I looked back at Simon and he was still shaking. “At least it’s not tea,” he whispered and met my eyes, trying to smile. 


	5. Chapter 5

Inside, Negan worked his way carefully from the fridge to the table, leaning on the cane with one hand and carrying a pitcher in the other. “Piss poor excuse for lemonade,” he muttered as he turned toward a cabinet. Judith was already there and she shooed him toward the table before taking down glasses. “No sugar to speak of, tastes more like lemon jizz than lemons.”

“Because you’ve sucked off so many lemons,” Judith snorted and put a full glass down in front of him. She offered the same to us and I took two glasses before passing one to Simon. 

Negan gave us a sheepish grin and a shrug. “Jude keeps me on the straight and narrow on the fucking diet stuff. I say, I’ve fucking lived this long, let me have a fucking cookie once in a while.”

“I do.” Judith dropped a package of sugar-free cookies on the table in front of him. Negan made a face.

“Diabetic?” I asked and tried to keep the surprise out of my voice. 

Negan stretched with an irritated grunt and crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah. Diabetes, fucked up heart, bum hip. Getting old fucking sucks, Angel.”

“Something we never thought we’d have to worry about,” Simon murmured softly. 

I smiled at them both and opened the package of cookies. “I didn’t even know sugarless Oreos existed.”

“Wonders never cease,” Judith deadpanned and Carl choked on his lemonade. “They make seedless grapes now, too.”

“Actually, that kind of is a big deal,” Carl countered. “Most of the seedless grapes died out during the worst of the infections. They had to find viable seeds or breed new varieties. The fact that we have seedless grapes again is kind of awesome.”

“Says Mr. Exposition.” Judith hid behind her lemonade glass and tried to dodge when her brother tried to tickle her. It occured to me it was the first time I’d seen her smile since we got there.

Simon tugged on my chair until he could wind his arms around me and pull me close to his chest. I offered him a cookie over my shoulder and felt him take it from my fingers, listened to him chew. “So, should we believe the hype?” Simon asked around his cookie. Negan lifted his head and raised his eyebrows in question and Simon swallowed to continue. “Saint Rick.”

“Fuck,” muttered Judith and Carl shushed her.

“We’ll just let you guys talk,” he said quickly and half-dragged his sister out of the kitchen. “Call if you need us.”

“Or if Negan tries to walk without his cane,” Judith added. “Or if he tries to get the plates down himself. Or--”

“Shut the fuck up, Jude!” Negan laughed. He glanced at us and his grin turned sheepish. “I think she likes me.”

“Yeah, that’s something I wouldn’t have seen coming,” Simon chuckled, waving a finger between Negan and the closed door. “Isn’t she kinda young?”

Negan glared. “Don’t be a fucking pervert, Simon. She’s my daughter-in-law.” Simon and I stared at him in utter silence while he pulled another cookie from the package and crunched into it. When we still hadn’t responded after he finished, Negan looked up at us and asked, “What?”

“You’ve got a son?” Simon asked in a small voice.

Negan snorted. “Never did manage that. No, three daughters. Jude’s married to the oldest, Clare.” He took out another cookie and muttered, “Fucking presumptuous ass. Do I have a son. No and I wouldn’t trade any of those girls for one, either.” 

“I didn’t mean anything,” Simon said quickly, trying to backpedal. “Yeah, I assumed and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

“How old are they?” I asked and Simon gave me a thankful glance. 

“Clare’s birthday is next week, actually,” Negan said, brightening. “She’ll be 21. Harper is 16 and Lu is 12.” He smiled to himself and turned the cookie over his fingers for a second. “I got pretty fucking lucky.” His eyes came up to study us and he asked, “You guys?”

“Also lucky,” Simon said quietly. “No kids.” He ran his palm over my forehead and smoothed down my hair before kissing the top of my head. “So very lucky,” he whispered. I closed my eyes and smiled. We had tried for a while. Two miscarriages and we stopped. The second one had driven us out of the woods in search of help. Help came too late for the baby, but in time for me. Simon wouldn’t try again after that. I didn’t argue.

Negan nodded slowly, then paused and ran his hands over his face. “I missed you,” he said quietly. “More than Saviors, you were my fucking friends. Losing you hurt.”

“I’m sorry for that,” I murmured. Simon hugged me tighter and rocked a little when I added, “Thank you for not coming after us.”

“You’re welcome.” Negan disassembled another cookie to lick the frosting out from between the halves. “Shit wasn’t the same with you gone.” His eyes flicked up to Simon and he smiled. “People saw you get away scot fucking free. They saw I didn’t track you down and kill you. They started leaving. Not all at once but I couldn’t fucking assign so much as a border guard without losing at least one.” He chewed on the cookie for a while, then added, “I could have fucking handled that if I hadn’t missed you. Every time someone fucking vanished, I missed you more. And then there was Rick.”

“Saint Rick,” Simon said, letting the /t/ and the /k/ flick off his tongue and between his teeth. 

Negan smiled. “Can’t fucking believe what they say. People who knew him, fuck. We know who he was. He would be so pissed about that fucking monstrosity of a house in the Safe Zone.”

“You’ve been?” I asked and he nodded.

“Few times. Took the girls when Lu was still a baby, talked over the fucking guide. Told the real stories.” He took a drink from his lemonade and eyed the bottom of the glass. “Want more?”

“Only if it’s stronger,” Simon said with a thin smile.

Negan frowned and I bit my lip to keep from laughing at the grumpy-child expression on his face. “Jude took all the fucking alcohol or I’d offer.” He started to stand up and I bounced up before he could get there. I beamed at him and went for the pitcher in the fridge while he glared at me. “You haven’t changed, Angel.”

“Liar,” I chuckled as I filled his glass and my own. I offered to Simon and he shrugged and made a finger gesture I recognized as “half.” I filled his glass and he glared at it before looking up at me and wrinkling his nose. “You’ll want it later,” I told him, “and then you’ll try to steal mine or make me get up to get the pitcher again.” Simon made a muffled hum in the back of his throat and took a drink from the glass without meeting my eyes.

I put the pitcher away and sat back down while Simon pulled my chair closer again. “When did you hear?” Negan asked quietly, “about Rick.”

“Time’s weird when you don’t use a clock.” Simon hugged me close and I tipped my head back against his shoulder. “After we ran out of the freeze-dried coffee. We had to go in and trade for it or risk Ella spontaneously combusting every morning.”

“I am not that bad,” I protested without lifting my head.

“Yes, you fucking are,” Negan chuckled. “Do you have any idea how much coffee you fucking drank at the Sanctuary? I think Robin’s records said fifty fucking percent of all coffee that came in, you drank.”

“Only half?” Simon asked and I reached back to swat the side of his head affectionately. “But, yeah it was sometime after that. We were in to trade and heard someone talking about how it was like the end of the world again.” I felt him snort, a burst of air on my cheek and a rocking of his chest. “Someone who had it easy under a rock somewhere.”

Negan smiled. “For some people, it was the fucking world. People love their symbols.”

“He got bit?” I asked quietly. “That seems so… not like Rick.”

We sat in silence for a moment and then Negan chuckled softly. “What part of risking his fucking live at every possible fucking second doesn’t sound like Rick?” He reached for another cookie and glared at the empty package. “It was only a matter of fucking odds.”

Simon rocked slowly with his arms tightly around me. “We didn’t get the whole picture. Do you know what really happened? I mean, the museum was pretty… uh, sensational.”

“Get me more fucking cookies and maybe I’ll tell you.” Negan grinned and heaved himself up from the table to lean on his cane again. “God, I feel like fucking Mr. Rogers neighborhood on the world’s shittiest day.” He paused to study us. “I’m fucking exhausted. How long you folks planning on staying in town?”

In the years of living together, Simon and I had developed an excellent sense of each other’s moods. I knew with my hand on his arm if he was smiling or not and he knew from behind my head if I was rolling my eyes. Simon’s hand came up slowly from the table and settled across my throat, his thumb stroking my skin. It was an intimately protective gesture. “Hadn’t decided yet,” he said in a low voice. 

Negan watched us and I could see the sadness in his eyes. “Come back for dinner, then? Jude makes great spaghetti and I think Clare was bringing the girls over tonight.” When we didn’t move, he licked his lips and looked down at the floor. “Look, I fucking know how we left things. I know I’ve got no fucking right to ask but I want to fix things.” He lifted one hand from the head of his cane and looked at his palm, his eyes growing hard. “I’m dying. I won’t fucking sugarcoat it. I’d rather die with more friends than enemies.” He closed his hand in a fist and looked at us, tired and sad again. “Please. Be Saviors for me again. Just for a night.”

I got up and felt Simon coming up behind me. I took a few steps closer until I was standing within reach of the man who had both saved my life and come close to my death many times over. I met his eyes and watched him watch me. “I am Negan.”

“I am Negan,” Simon whispered behind me. 

Negan closed his eyes and rocked, letting tears fall.


	6. Chapter 6

Negan lay down for a nap. It was one of the stranger experiences of my life. Judith--Jude, since Negan had pinned down her personal preferences better than her brother had--encouraged us to make ourselves at home. Carl said he had some errands to run before dinner if we wanted to stay. Simon stood on the porch for a long time after the car had vanished, watching the road.

“Can I help?” I asked Jude in the kitchen. She was coring and dicing tomatoes with the efficiency of a chef and I realized I was afraid for her fingers. “I’m not used to feeling useless.”

Jude chuckled and nodded. “I suppose not. There’s another knife if you want to chop the onions. They always make me cry.” I peeled and washed the onions in the sink while she finished with the tomatoes. “He talks about you a lot, you know.”

“Negan?” I asked unnecessarily and she nodded. “Different times. Different memories. Not better, just different.”

“No, I mean you you. You Ella you.” She lifted the cutting board to slide another tomato into the pan for the sauce. “I think he loves you.”

I chuckled and shook my head. “If he does, he’s forgetting most of our relationship.” I rinsed the chopped onions and added them to Jude’s pot. She leaned across me to add salt and pepper, then stirred and tasted before sticking the spoon at my face. I tasted and nodded. “Needs sugar and oregano.” 

“Sugar?” she asked in surprise and I grinned.

“Cuts the acidity of the tomatoes.” I washed my hands. “It could do with some peppers if you’ve got them, too.” 

Jude studied me for a moment, then smiled and pulled two green peppers and a red bell pepper from the fridge. “I’ve never tried it with peppers before. You think Dad will like it?” We both froze with the peppers between us and her face flushed brilliantly. “He’s my father-in-law,” she said quietly. “I don’t call him that in front of Carl. Not ever.” 

“No one ever said the Grimes’s were stupid,” I murmured back. “Well, at least not your generation of them.” I turned back to the cutting board and started dicing the peppers. “Yes, I think he’ll like it.” I paused in mid-chop and smiled to myself. “He always did like it when I was in the kitchens. If he loved me, it was only for my food.”

The screen door opened and I looked up as Simon came back inside. He smiled at me and I felt the familiar sense of homecoming. “You make really good food,” he commented as he settled at the kitchen table. “It’s worth loving.” Jude glanced at Simon and lapsed back into silence as she finished cutting the other peppers and stirring them into the sauce. After the silence had stretched to discomfort, Simon said, “Nothing you can say about Negan will upset me, Jude. I want you to know that.” She glanced up and away when Simon grinned. “I know he’s in love with Ella. Everyone in the Sanctuary was. She was the best sniper the Saviors ever had, the best in the kitchens, the smartest.”

I glared at him. “Shut up, Simon. Stop filling the poor girl’s head with lies. I think she’s probably had enough of those to last several lifetimes.” Jude chuckled and stirred the sauce while Simon leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head, grinning at me. “I was a good Savior,” I said. “I tried to be fair when I had to make decisions, ruthless when I had to be. We all were.” I looked at Simon and his grin faltered. 

“I’m glad I don’t remember,” Jude said softly. She tasted the sauce, added a little more black pepper and continued stirring. “I don’t really remember anything until after you were both gone.”

“You were pretty little,” I agreed. “We didn’t see much of you, either. Your dad kept a pretty close eye on you.” I pulled up a chair beside Simon and settled there, leaned into his eagerly waiting arms and let my head rest on his shoulder. 

Jude looked up from the sauce and grinned at us. “You have got to be the cuddliest couple I have ever seen. Are you always like this?” She turned down the heat on the sauce, covered it and came to sit across from us. 

“Pretty much.” Simon brushed my hair back from my forehead and kissed it. “We spent too much time being afraid of dying to risk not getting to touch each other again.” I pulled his hand to my lips and kissed his fingers, felt him smile against my skin. “When you risk losing everything, you take nothing for granted.”

Jude smiled. “Yeah, I get that. We’ve seen a lot of survivors like that now. I mean, some of them take it in weird places. We’ve seen a lot of hoarders since the recovery.” A creak in the house made her head snap around. “He might be waking up. I’ll go check on him.”

As she vanished back into the house, I smiled and snuggled against Simon’s chest. “You can’t say his charisma has suffered.” 

“Hardly.” Simon let his thumb trace my cheek. “It felt weird to say it again.”

“It did,” I agreed softly. 

“I think I was finally getting used to just being Simon,” he whispered. “Just being… your Simon. I like that. I like not being Negan.”

“Me, too,” I whispered back. 

 

We ended up curling up together on the couch in the living room and taking a nap of our own. When I woke up again, Simon had rolled me into the back of the couch and stuffed me most of the way into the seat cushions, one hand worked down into the back of my jeans and his head pillowed on the other. I chuckled softly and leaned up to kiss his lips. “Simon.”

“Mmph.” He twitched and followed my lips, trying to kiss me back as he woke up. 

“Your hand is in my pants,” I informed him quietly.

I felt his fingers wiggle against my tailbone and his body started to shake as he smothered laughter. “I would say I’m sorry, but I’m really not.” He shifted his hand to cup my ass and kissed me again with a grin. 

“You’re incorrigible,” I snorted.

“Oooh, talk dirty to me,” he grinned and I laughed as he pinned me down to kiss me.

Movement in the room made us both freeze and Negan’s voice drifted lazily to us: “Don’t fucking let me interrupt. It’s nice to see you two haven’t changed that much.” Carefully, he walked across the room and paused beside the couch, smirking. “If one of you was fucking missing, it was safe to assume the other one was, too.”

“Because we were missing fucking,” Simon chuckled and slipped his hand out of my jeans to roll back and grin up at Negan. “Have a nice nap, grandpa?”

“Shut the fuck up, baldy.”

Simon clutched his chest and fell back. “Low blow, boss. Low blow.”

I gave him a little push and he rolled to his knees on the floor before heaving himself up and offering me a hand to my feet. “At least you accepted it with grace,” I told him and pulled him down so I could kiss him. 

“What was I gonna do?” Simon asked with a shrug. “Whine and cry and do the supreme back-to-front comb-over?” I grinned and Negan chuckled, shaking his head as he started hobbling for the kitchen again.

All the warning I got was a brief grunt and Negan started to go down. I hissed through my teeth and rushed to catch him under one arm while Simon caught him by the other. “You okay, boss?” I asked him, worried.

“Yeah, I’m fucking fine,” he grumbled but let us support him while he caught his balance again and settled with the cane. “Guess my knees didn’t get the memo about the nap.”

“You need to sit down?” I asked. Jude had arrived with her eyes wide and her hands already out to help. Negan shook his head and we reluctantly let him test his own legs before letting him go. “You sure?”

“I’m fucking fine, Angel.” 

“Dad,” Jude started warningly and Negan smiled.

“I love it when you call me that,” he said, reaching with one hand to grab hers. She sighed, the resigned, fond sound of a woman who is dealing with a man who is refusing to do something for his own good. Jude let him pull her in so he could hug her with one arm and then he let her support him into the kitchen to the table again. 

“Carl called,” Jude said when she was sure Negan was settled comfortably at the table. “He’s about twenty minutes out and saw Clare making the turn ahead of him, so they should be here soon.”

I watched the smile on Negan’s face spread. It changed his whole demeanor, his eyes crinkling and his dimples deepening. “Good,” he said quietly. I felt Simon’s hand on the small of my back and when I glanced up at him, he was watching Negan with the same kind of smile on his face. 

“I’m glad you found what you were looking for.” I hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but it came out anyway and Negan looked up in surprise. Since I’d already started the thought, I went ahead and finished it: “Family.”

Negan stared at me for a moment, then looked away. “I’m glad, too, Angel.”

Outside, the dog started to bark in slow, lazy woofs. Car tires crunched on the gravel and several doors opened and slammed again, followed by the sounds of voices. I could feel Simon almost vibrating nervously behind me and I reached back to find his fingers. He pulled me close and pushed his nose into my hair. “I’m so not used to this anymore,” he whispered in my ear. “Everything is so loud and there’s always something moving.” 

“We’ll just stay for dinner,” I whispered back. 

“I’m very ready to go home.”

“Me, too.”

Jude rushed into the arms of a tall, dark-haired woman whose smile made me dizzy. There was no question whatsoever that she was Negan’s daughter, Clare. Close behind her came a pair of younger girls, one with her long, almost black hair in a braid down her back and the other with a bobbed haircut that exploded into curls. They all paused to stare at us. “This is Simon and Ella,” Jude supplied when the silence had stretched to awkwardness. 

“Oh, fucking hell,” breathed Clare and I couldn’t stop the laughter that tumbled out of me. She looked almost offended and I shook my head, waving a hand until I got a better grip on myself.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You just sound so much like your father, it’s disorienting.”

“Did you know my mother?” Clare asked, her tone wary.

I let my eyes slide sideways to meet Negan’s and he looked away, just barely dropping his chin in a nod. “Yes,” I said quietly. “We were fairly close, for a time.” Simon’s hand ran down the back of my wrist and I gave him a small half-smile. “So, you’re Clare. And you must be…” I studied the two younger girls.

The older girl with the short hair gave me an almost savage grin. “I’m Harper. This is Lucille.”

“Lu,” the younger girl whispered and offered me her hand. I shook it seriously and she almost smiled at me, but then blushed and hid behind her older sister again. 

“It’s nice to meet you.”

Outside, another set of car wheels crunched and Lu’s expression lit up. “Uncle Carl!” She had sprinted back outside before anyone could react and I grinned when I heard her knocking Carl clean off his feet and into the driveway. 

“More like a brother, really,” muttered Jude as she shooed her wife and Harper deeper into the kitchen to say hello to their father. When Simon gave her a querying look, she shrugged. “He’s older enough than Lu that she never really got used to the idea that they’re the same generation. It happens a lot with kids whose first memories are after the beginning of the recovery.”

“They’re the same generation, but their whole world is different,” murmured Simon and Jude nodded. 

When Carl and Lu came back in and we were all arrayed around the table with plates of spaghetti, Negan surprised me by pausing and closing his eyes. It was a brief motion, wordless, but Clare and Lu did the same before everyone started to eat. Negan caught my eye and smiled, almost sheepish. “I’m still alive,” he half-whispered. “Not for lack of trying on the world’s part. Something must be out there.” I smiled and nodded a little before digging into my dinner.


	7. Chapter 7

We ate Jude’s very excellent spaghetti. Mostly, Simon and I sat close together and watched the others interacting. Jude and Clare spent the meal encouraging and muting conversation by turns, depending on the topic and the mood of the table. Carl was more likely to blunder into something than to bridge a gap and it was fun to watch the younger generation teasing each other and relaxing in spite of their elders.

More than once, I caught Negan watching us. His dark eyes were sad when he did but brightened when he smiled. And he did smile at us. A lot.

As the evening quieted and Clare escorted her sisters out with a quick kiss for Jude, we settled around Negan’s cozy living room. I sat with my arms wrapped around Simon’s waist and my head in his lap while he ran his fingers through my hair. Carl sat in one armchair while Negan sank into another. Jude sat on the floor with her back against her brother’s leg. “The world’s changed,” Simon said into the quiet.

“The only certain things are death and change,” Jude answered.

“Wasn’t the original death and taxes?” Carl asked.

“We went a long fucking time without taxes,” Negan smiled.

Carl chuckled and nodded. “True.”

“What do you see that’s changed the most?” Jude asked softly.

Simon sighed and traced his fingers along my jaw. “People watch each other differently now. Especially the older ones, folks our age. But even you kids do, too. For us, it’s that we spent so long watching each other for signs of weakness, illness, infection. We were constantly on guard for something to fall apart, no matter if it was someone with the flu who carried it to a room full of kids or someone who just snapped and started shooting or one of those religious fanatics who said that the dead were our natural state and we should embrace turning.” He ran his fingers through my hair again, his thumb brushing my cheek. “We watched each other because betrayal could come from anywhere, anyone. Intentionally or unintentionally, we could be dead at the hands of someone else in the blink of an eye.

“You kids… you watch each other because watching is what you do. You grew up watching us watch each other and that became your normal. Now, even in a city this size, everyone watches each other but I’m not sure if they even know why anymore.” Simon paused and turned to smile slightly at Carl. “What do you think?”

Carl shrugged slowly. “Some people still know why. Some people still watch each other for signs of infection, sickness, mental illness. I know I do and when I see it, it scares the shit out of me way faster than it does anyone else around me.”

“Do you think we’re getting complacent?” Jude asked him with her head tipped back on his knee.

“Maybe a little.” He shifted and slouched in the armchair until Jude moved over and let his knees rest against either side of her shoulders. “I think that maybe it’s a good thing we never found a cure.”

I sat up in surprise. “Seriously?” I asked him. “You think it’s a good thing?”

Carl shrugged a little. “If we’re going to be honest, yeah. I do. I mean, think about it. Generations before us wiped out some forms of disease, got comfortable with the idea that there were some things they could cure, could destroy entirely. And then they got complacent. People started believing that those diseases couldn’t have been nearly as bad as history showed them and you ended up with anti-vaxxers, resurgences of stupid shit like polio and mumps and measles. Stuff we’d beaten as a species.” He fell silent for a moment and folded his hands together, studying his fingertips. “The closest they got to finding a cure was discovering that it was a modified form of flu. Seriously. Millions upon millions of people wiped out because we didn’t get a fucking flu shot in time. The reanimation aspects seem to have been hybridized in from rabies. It was engineered. But it spread when we came down with the flu, then spread it to others and recovered. Something we had vaccines for but half the population didn’t bother with for any number of reasons. Something so fucking simple.”

“So what didn’t kill us immediately killed us later on,” Simon murmured with a morbid chuckle. “That’s how everyone got infected in the first place.” Carl just nodded.

“Some have even speculated that it was in the flu shots to begin with.” He shrugged. “That’s usually dismissed as a conspiracy theory, but when something this massive was engineered to kill massive numbers of people, it’s hard to dismiss conspiracies.”

“Doesn’t really fucking matter anymore anyway,” Negan put in. “It ended our fucking world and started yours.”

“It’s your world, too,” insisted Jude, but Negan, Simon and I exchanged tired smiles.

“It’s really not, babydoll,” Negan murmured. “We’re here if you need us, but it’s your fucking world. We’ve already shown the world what we could fucking do with it. Now it’s your turn.”

“And you’re doing a damn fine better job than we ever did,” Simon added with a grin.

Jude shook her head angrily and Carl put a hand on her shoulder to calm her. “It’s not true, though,” she protested. “People like our dad shaped what the world looks like. You did, too, Negan. The world you guys built is the foundation we’re working with now. It’s still your world.”

Negan, Simon, and I sat considering her words, watching her face and the look on her brother’s face. “This world,” Simon started in a low voice, “doesn’t have room in it anymore for the kind of violence that brought us together. And that’s good. That kind of violence had a purpose: it kept us alive. Now, the world keeps itself alive. You work toward a common goal, build up and out rather than pulling down and in. We’re still… pulling down and in. We don’t belong anymore.”

“You don’t have to,” Jude whispered and I realized there were tears in her eyes. I closed my eyes and turned away from her, letting my lips rest on Simon’s shoulder. “We can still learn so much from you. You could belong.”

“I don’t want to belong.” Simon’s arms wrapped around me sharply and I leaned against him. “I like the quiet. I like never seeing another human except for my wife. The second I left the Sanctuary, I knew I never wanted to belong anywhere again. Only out there, with her.” His lips brushed my forehead and I smiled up at him. “I like going for days on end without speaking because we don’t have to. I like hunting for our food, working in the garden, picking apples and peaches from our trees.” He rocked slowly and buried his face in my shoulder. “I don’t want to belong to this world. I…” his voice cracked a little and he barely whispered in my ear, “I belong in yours.”

“I know,” I whispered back and he hugged me harder.

“I want to go home.”

“I know.”

We were all quiet for a long time while Simon struggled for control again. I could feel how tired he was, how stretched to his breaking point this whole day had left him. He kept his face pressed into my shoulder and took shaking breaths that eventually evened out until he was breathing more normally. I ran my hand down the back of his neck and felt him sigh. “Sorry,” he whispered.

“It’s okay,” I murmured back.

“Do you want to go back to the hotel?” Carl asked in a gentle voice.

“I want to go home,” Simon repeated. I nosed his face and he sighed, then kissed me slowly. “I’m sorry,” he said and sat up. “It’s been a long-ass day.”

“If we start now,” Carl said softly, “I can have you home around eleven, eleven-thirty.”

“That’s not necessary, Carl,” I smiled. “But thank you. We’ll be okay waiting until tomorrow.”

“Stay.” Negan’s voice was rough and low and Simon and I both looked up to see him staring at his palms. “Please.”

“I can stay overnight,” Jude said as she stood up and crossed to kiss his forehead.

Negan looked up at her and smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes when he looked back at us. I could see how he much he wanted us to stay the night. I could feel how badly Simon didn’t want to. I reached and laced my fingers through Simon’s and pulled his hand to my lips to kiss his fingers. “Just one night,” I whispered to him, “and then we go home. It’ll be quieter here than the hotel.”

“Ella, I can’t,” Simon rasped. “I just can’t.”

I sighed and cupped my hands to his face, drew him closer and kissed him. “Simon, look at me.” Reluctantly, his dark eyes came up to meet mine. “One night,” I whispered. “This could be the last night.” His eyes widened and flicked to the side before returning to watch me. I smiled gently. “There’s no telling.”

Slowly, he leaned against my forehead and let out a long breath. “Okay. One night.”

***

We curled together in the spare bedroom, spooned up the way we had every night for fifteen years. Simon’s arms wrapped around me, his face pressed down into my hair, his breath stirred against the nape of my neck. Even now, his arms were strong, his body fit and ready to fight a threat. He was still unbent, alert, aware. Well, not necessarily aware now, since I could feel his deep, even breathing.

I wanted to believe that we could keep going forever. I wanted to believe there would never be a day when we needed the kind of care Negan had found in the children of his oldest…

...enemy? That didn’t feel right. I wondered if Negan had ever told Rick how he felt before Rick turned. I sighed and closed my eyes. Probably not. Negan had never been good at admitting his feelings when they ran deeper than ‘I’d fuck ‘em.’ He had certainly never admitted them to me.

I traced my fingers over the back of Simon’s hand and smiled to myself before my worries crept back in. Someday, it would be Simon leaning on the doorframe to recover his balance. Someday, I would be the one complaining about the lack of sugar in the cookies. Or even worse, it would be one of us looking into the other’s face and not knowing them. I closed my eyes tightly and clenched my jaw, willing the thought away.

“Babe?” Simon’s hand ran up over my side and down to my waist again. “You okay?”

“I can’t see,” I whispered.

Silence filled the room and I wondered briefly if he was even awake. Without another word, Simon rolled over and turned on the bedside light. “Better?”

I sighed and rolled onto my back to study his face. “I’m serious, Simon,” I said.

He shifted to slide back down beside me and cradled my face with his palm. “So’m I. What’s wrong?”

“I missed a deer,” I whispered with my eyes closed. “Before we left. At the bait pile.”

“Like you’ve always hit every deer you shot at.”

“I didn’t miss like that.” I opened my eyes and leaned my cheek against his hand. “I didn’t even see it, Simon. Never knew it was there until something startled it and it ran off. Scared the shit out of me.”

Simon stared at me, his eyes carefully taking in every inch of my face before he examined my eyes. I could tell that’s what he was doing because it was like having him look past me without seeing me. Very slowly, he tilted my head so the bedside light shone on my eyes differently. “They’re cloudy,” he whispered and the fear and grief in his voice broke my heart. “Not a lot, but I can see it.”

“Cataracts were a foregone conclusion, considering my family history,” I murmured.

“They can be fixed.”

“With what money, baby?” I leaned and kissed him gently. “I really don’t think the hospital system is likely to take payment in carved knives and knitted socks.”

Simon closed his eyes and clung to me. “I can’t lose you,” he whispered.

“I’m not dying,” I chuckled. “I’m just going blind.”

I heard his teeth grinding together briefly and he growled, “Don’t laugh at me, Ella. I’m serious. I can’t lose you. I won’t. We’ve come through too much and I…” He exhaled sharply like someone had kicked him in the ribs. “We’ll talk to Carl on the way home,” he whispered. “We’ll find out what it’ll take to have them fixed. If we have to move back to the city, start working, I swear I’ll find some way to fix this.”

I stroked my thumb over his cheek and sighed. “Simon, don’t be silly. We aren’t moving back to the city. At the very least, I’m not.”

“There’s gonna be a point when we can’t stay out there anymore,” Simon whispered. “We can’t… really get old out there, Ella.”

“I know.”

“What are we going to do?”

I smiled. “Not get old.”

Simon closed his eyes and sighed. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I whispered and kissed him until I could taste our tears.


	8. Chapter 8

I woke up in the night because something in the air had changed. I slipped out of bed and waited to see if Simon would wake up. When he didn’t so much as roll over, I crept out of the spare room and into the hallway. I listened. I padded down to the bathroom, slipped inside, used it without flushing. I waited beside the door, let my ear press against the wood to listen.

Something rattled loosely.

I closed my eyes and let my breath out slowly. I listened.

I could hear soft weeping, then the sound of breath rattling again.

I crept out of the bathroom and down the hall, put my hand on the door to Negan’s bedroom, gently pushed it open. Judith sat beside his bed, his hand between her own and her head bowed, shoulders shaking. Negan’s face was drawn and pale, eyes closed. I thought he was asleep at first, but his eyes flashed open and he croaked, “Angel.” Jude jumped and looked at me over her shoulder, wiping at her face.

“Sorry,” I whispered. “I thought I heard something.”

Negan’s smile was weak but he held out his other hand and I came in to take it. “You would know a fuckin’ death rattle when you hear it, Angel.”

“You’re not dying, you fucker,” I replied shortly and watched him smile. I watched him breathe, trying not to see how hard it clearly was for him now. “Negan can’t die.”

“Lookin’ at some fairly compelling fucking evidence that he can.”

“No,” I smiled against my own emotions and squeezed his fingers. “Negan can’t die because we’re all Negan.” I leaned down and kissed his forehead. “I’m Negan.”

“I am Negan,” Jude whispered and half-collapsed against his side in tears.

I heard the door creak softly and looked up to see Simon leaning heavily against it, his eyes closed and his head down. “I am Negan,” he added without looking up.

Negan stared at his friend and coughed, his face twisted in pain. “No,” he finally said and his fingers squeezed mine. “No, the Saviors are dead. Let that die with me, guys. Nothing about the fucking Saviors belongs in this world anymore. I’ll take it with me.” He tilted his head to smile at me. “You’re Angella. Nobody else. Hell of a shot, hell of a cook, hell of a lover not that you ever let me find out first hand. But I know how happy you made Simon, so it had to be true.” I looked away from him, but his hand cupped my cheek and turned my face back. “Angel. Don’t be Negan. Not anymore.” He looked up at Simon and his smile became a grin. “You were never Negan, Simon. Never could be. You were always too much yourself at heart.”

“Don’t,” Simon whispered.

“I will fucking say what I want on my fucking deathbed,” Negan snapped back and coughed again. “If I wanna get fucking sentimental and shit, I will. You’re Simon and you’ve always been Simon. I trusted you because you weren’t Negan and you were loyal anyway. That’s why it hurt so much when you left.” He reached up and beckoned with his fingers. “C’mere, you fucker.”

Simon stood up from against the door and came around to the side of the bed, leaned down when Negan reached up and they hugged each other in silence. I could hear something whispered between them but didn’t try to understand: it wasn’t for me. When Simon stood back, his face was streaked with tears and he put one hand on my shoulder, leaning close. “Thank you,” he said and his voice sounded older than I had ever heard it before.

“No.” Jude reached up and gripped Negan’s hand again. “No, you can’t.” Negan smiled sadly at her and she shook her head, making her hair swing around her face. “I’m not ready for you to go.”

“I’m going, just the same,” he said quietly. He reached across and traced his thumb over her cheek. “Don’ cry. Just be…” Negan’s voice stopped and Jude’s eyes darted quickly to his face. There was strain there, his eyes squinted slightly. “Just be you,” he managed finally. “Be Jude. No one else fucking can be.”

“Don’t go,” she gasped and lunged to wrap her arms around his neck, sobbing. “Please, Dad!”

He put one hand on her shoulder, comforting. “Love it when you call me that,” he rasped.

And then Negan was gone.

I could feel when it happened. Like a cooling in the air, an exhale that said there would be no inhale. I reached up and covered Simon’s hand with my own when he gripped my shoulder, acknowledging him.

“Dad?” Jude’s voice was a child’s and I closed my eyes. “Dad?! Daddy!” She collapsed and sobbed against his chest, clinging to the shell of the man who had loomed so large in all of our lives for so long.

“I’ll call Carl,” Simon said quietly and kissed my cheek. “Take care of her?”

I nodded and felt him go. I sat quietly and watched Judith Grimes grieving for the man who had threatened to kill her father multiple times, who her father had vowed to kill. I listened to her sobbed pleas for him to wake up, her calling him ‘Dad.’ After a little while, I stood up and circled the bed, gathered her up and held her against my chest. “Simon’s calling your brother,” I told her softly as she sobbed. “I assume he’ll tell Clare and they’ll come out?” Jude nodded against my

houlder and I kissed her temple. “How ‘bout you make some coffee? I don’t think we’re going to be sleeping much more.”

“I…” Jude sniffed and wiped at her face, then looked at the bed. “He needs--”

“Go make coffee,” I whispered. “Go on, Jude.”

Her eyes searched my face for a second, then she nodded and looked away from me. She paused at the door and said in a broken voice, “There’s a knife in the bedside table.”

“Thank you,” I said.

When she was gone, I stood up and closed the door after her. I came back to the bed, sat on the chair where she had been. I studied Negan’s still face. The body didn’t even look like him anymore, drained of the humor that had been so vital to his personality. I glanced at my watch: he had been dead about five minutes. It seemed longer. It seemed shorter. I opened the drawer of the bedside table and took out the hunting knife. I bared the blade and chuckled at it: it was Negan’s knife. It made sense it would be, but I hadn’t expected to recognize it. I traced my thumb over the carving of the baseball bat wrapped in wire and sighed. “Lucille, he’s coming home,” I said softly.

His hand twitched.

I rolled the body to the side, slipped the knife firmly into the base of the skull, felt the neurons give up and the twitching stilled again.

It had been a long time since I’d quieted a corpse. I hadn’t realized how long until I was drawing back the blade and a wave of panic hit me. I gasped and turned the blade in my hand so it lay along my forearm, spun into a crouch facing the door. I waited, breathing hard and trying to control the terror that gripped me. I heard hands fumbling at the door and braced myself for a fight.

If Negan could die, anyone could.

The door opened and I felt myself drawn inward like a breath, staring at the indistinct shape in the doorway. It jerked and lurched a little when the door moved and I gritted my teeth. Fucking undead wouldn’t stay down. I was just starting a leap forward with the knife out when Simon’s voice pierced the fog of my senses and his hands came up to grab my wrists, “Ella! It’s me!”

I froze and dropped the knife. I blinked rapidly in the dim light and felt Simon shift to touch my face. I flinched, then let the bubble of horror and confusion burst as I started to cry. “Simon!”

His arms wrapped around me and he held me, rocking me slowly and hushing me. “It’s okay,” he said quickly, then repeated it again more gently when he was sure I wasn’t fighting him. He stroked my hair and kissed my temple, then leaned slightly to one side. I opened my eyes and saw that he was looking at the knife at our feet, moving it with the toe of his stockinged foot. “He’s done?” he whispered and I nodded. “You okay?”

“I attacked you,” I said brokenly and his arms tightened around me.

“You were confused.”

“I couldn’t see you.”

Simon hushed me again and kissed my forehead. “It’s okay.”

I shook my head violently and said, “No, it’s not okay. I couldn’t see you, Simon. I didn’t know it was you. I thought you were a walker. I thought… I…”

His arms cradled me as he kissed my forehead, my temple, my lips. “Baby, stop,” he whispered. “Stop. It’s dark. It’s the middle of the night. You’re still in shock. It’s okay.”

The fight slipped out of me and I leaned against him with tears running down my face. “It’s not okay. It’s not. It’ll never be okay.” Simon heaved a sigh as he stroked my hair and I shook my head slowly. “I could have hurt you. I just killed--”

“You did not kill him,” Simon interrupted me shortly. “Ella, look at me.” When I did, he leaned down and pressed his forehead to mine, stared into my eyes until he was entirely sure I was watching him. “He was already dead, baby. You know that. You did not kill Negan. You ended him. He was already dead.”

“Simon?” Jude’s voice echoed oddly from the front room and Simon looked over his shoulder. “Is everything okay?”

“We’re fine,” he called back. “We are, you know,” he added to me and kissed my forehead again. When I just nodded weakly, he hugged me close and guided me back out into the living room.

Jude met us there with two mugs of coffee and a box of sugar-free cookies balanced on top of her head. When she saw the look on my face, she dropped the cookies and very nearly the coffee in her rush to hug me. “Ella!?”

“I’m okay,” I told her and smiled. “You’re way sweeter than your father ever was,” I chuckled.

“Carol,” she said with a small smile. “And Maggie. Michonne. I had good female role models.”

“You did.” I accepted the mug of coffee and sipped at it, keeping my eyes closed until I felt more stable.

“Carl said he’d come as soon as he could,” Simon said as he took the other mug. “He would call Clare and the girls. They’ll probably be here soon after.”

“The girls?” Jude asked with a note of despair in her voice. “Maybe we should have waited until the morning.”

“You need Clare,” Simon informed her and poked her in the chest with a finger. “Carl’s great, but you need your wife right now.” His eyes found mine and he smiled. “And she needs you, too.” I smiled back.

***

Carl drove us home the next morning. We promised to come for the memorial. He said he’d be in touch. Simon talked his ear off for most of the drive about options for cataract surgery and Carl promised to do some research. When I protested about the costs, he chuckled and glanced at me in the rearview. “Ella, you don’t think you’re sitting out on that property for free, do you? You’re covered.”

“But how?” I asked, feeling lost.

“Negan.” He shrugged. “And Dad. And a few other people who adapted better after the reconstruction. There’s a foundation.”

“What’s it called?” Simon asked and I heard the humor in his voice.

Carl grinned. “The Sanctuary Foundation. Taking care of survivors one case at a time.” He signaled and turned off onto our access road. “I know a few doctors I can call and I’ll look into what we can do for you. In the meantime…” He paused and let the silence stretch for a while. “Negan wanted you to have the house.”

I stared for a few seconds, then looked at Simon. He didn’t meet my eyes. “That’s… very generous, but shouldn’t that belong to his daughters?”

“Depends on how you look at it,” Carl replied. “He talked with them about it. He talked with me about it. He explained why to Jude and Clare and they seemed to understand. I’ll admit that I don’t. He made his wishes on the subject clear, though. He wanted you to have it.”

Simon ran his hand down my arm and pulled me against his chest to whisper in my ear, “He wanted us to move somewhere closer to civilization, Ell. He wanted Carl and Jude to be able to check on us like they checked on him. He wanted us to get the chance to get old. Really old.”

I shook my head in confusion. “But I don’t--”

“He told me,” Simon interrupted me. “He said, ‘She won’t want to, but do it for me. Keep her safe.’ And I aim to.” He kissed my temple and hugged me tightly. “We can garden here. We can hunt here. It won’t be the same, but we’ll have running water and electricity and you’ll be close to hospitals if you decide to get surgery.” He grinned quietly when I looked up at him. “You can make me those waffles.”

“All this for some damn waffles,” I said to keep the emotions from spilling out.

Simon kissed me. He kissed me like he had always kissed me, with hope. “He loved you, Angella. He loved me. He loved who we were...who we are together and he didn’t want that hiding out in the wilderness until we couldn’t function anymore.” He stroked my face and smiled. “He always was good at seeing who needed to be saved the most.”

Carl pulled into our driveway and stopped the car. We got out. “I’ll call when we have a date for the memorial,” he said. “And once I’ve talked to some people about cataracts. Take care of yourselves until then, okay?”

“I think we can manage,” I smiled.

“For now.” Simon hugged me close. “Safe driving, Carl.”

“Good hunting.”

Carl reversed the car, pulled out, drove away. We watched him go.

And then we went home.


End file.
